March 16, 2014

Let’s Build A Character For Shadowrun (Part 3)

by Joshua Garrett

So far we have our Shadowruncharacter’s metatype, attributes, qualities, and skills. Now, since we have opted for him to be a magic-user, we come to what is likely the most important part of the character. The magic.

Because we chose magic as our highest priority, we will start off with a Magic score of 6 – the highest it can be at character creation – as well as a total of 10 spells/rituals/alchemical preparations. Since we did not select alchemy as a skill, we will not worry about the later of those. We will also be focusing mostly on spells, as that is where we have our character’s focus, but there are a few rituals that will likely be useful to us so lets go ahead and look at those first. Glancing over them, there are three that really stand out, those being Ward, Circle of Protection, and Watcher. Curse is also very tempting, but lets hold off on that for now and stick with those three. That leaves us with seven spells we can start with. Note, as we selected the Raven as our Mentor Spirit, Dominican receives a special bonus of plus two to all spell-casting rolls for Manipulation spells, so it would be wisest to focus on those. This also pairs up well with our affinity for Spirits of Man, the manipulative spirit of the Shamanistic tradition. Do not worry if you did not catch all that. It comes from playing the game. Once you have a few sessions under your belts, you will be able to recognize things like that too. Looking at the Manipulation school of magic, the spells Armor, Control Thoughts, Influence, and Levitate look like good starters for us. In addition to those, the spells Heal, Manabolt, and Stunball, while not Manipulation spells, are really good spells to have. And like that, we have our seven.

Next, we have money to spend. 50,000 nuyen, to be specific. Sounds like a lot? Trust me that it will go quickly. This wealth represents everything our character has managed to accumulate so far and has to take into consideration everything from gear and weaponry to his living expenses. In fact, lets start with that. In Shadowrun, characters have a lifestyle that they have to pay every month, representing their costs of living. This includes things like where they live to how secure it is, as well as entertainment and other such things. For this character, I see him living quite well (for a shadowrunner) and starting off at a Medium lifestyle. Since he will want to use this place for Artificing, the option for Special Work Area is also desirable, as is Extra Secure and Obscure due to his Distinctive Style negative quality. Adding all that up, that comes to 7,800.

Then there are three things every runner needs. A weapon, armor, and a com. Although we have Manabolt and Stunball, lets not rely on magic for everything – there is a reason I made sure to give this character is pistols after all. So, living by the credo of “go big or go home” lets give this guy a good-old fashioned hand-cannon, and nothing says that better than the Ruger Super-Warhawk, a giant revolver that puts the fear of God into anyone looking down its barrel. That costs us 400 nuyen. Next, we will pick up a quick-draw holster for it (175 nuyen), an integrated smart-gun built into the weapon (400 nuyen), and three speed loaders (75 nuyen). Oh, and we cannot forget the bullets. Already, there is nothing silent about this beast, so lets really go all out with some explosive rounds. Thirty should be enough to start us off (240 nuyen) but lets also buy some Stick-n-Shock (electric) rounds just in case we need to go non-lethal. 20 should be enough of those (160 nuyen). All right, we have our gun. For armor, lets go with a lined coat – a duster with armor plating – if for no other reason than it looks cool (900) and because we do not want to find us on the receiving end of a taser, lets fit that with rating six non-conductivity (1500 nuyen). Thus far, we have already spent 11,650 of our 50,000.

Next time we will finish up with gear and spend the remainder of our karma.